2006/09/08 by Philippe Marmottant, Marmottant, Philippe, Christophe Raufaste +3
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Polymer Foaming and Composites #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0609188
openalex publication_date 2006/09/08 · arxiv created 2008/01/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The plastic flow of a foam results from bubble rearrangements. We study their occurrence in experiments where a foam is forced to flow in 2D: around an obstacle; through a narrow hole; or sheared between rotating disks. We describe their orientation and frequency using a topological matrix defined in the companion paper (Graner et al., preprint), which links them with continuous plasticity at large scale. We then suggest a phenomenological equation to predict the plastic strain rate: its orientation is determined from the foam's local elastic strain; and its rate is determined from the foam's local elongation rate. We obtain a good agreement with statistical measurements. This enables us to describe the foam as a continuous medium with fluid, elastic and plastic properties. We derive its constitutive equation, then test several of its terms and predictions.